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Border battles: What side of the fence are you on?

( Updated: 03/13/2015 )

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A protester is dragged away by police at the Freedom Summit in Des Moines, Iowa, on Jan. 25, 2015. Jim Young/Reuters

US Border Patrol inspectors Albert F. Koenig (l.) and William A. Sherrill locate fresh footprints in the desert along the border with Mexico, some 12 miles west of Calexico, Calif., in 1950. With Mt. Signal as a distinct directional point in the background, this area was frequently used by illegal immigrants to enter the United States. AP

Migrants climb off a train in Ixtepec, Mexico, during their journey toward the US-Mexico border in 2013. Migrants crossing Mexico to get to the US have increasingly become targets of criminal gangs who kidnap them to obtain ransom money. Eduardo Verdugo/AP

Demonstrators march against 'amnesty' for undocumented immigrants during a rally against the Senate's immigration reform bill on Pennsylvania Avenue, Washington, in July 2013. The Senate approved sweeping immigration legislation at the end of June, but the Republican-controlled House did not take it up. Jose Luis Magana/Reuters

Eight-year-old Gabby, of El Salvador, peeks into a city shuttle bus after her family was released by US Customs and Border Protection Services at the bus station in McAllen, Texas, in July 2014. Though most travelers have enough money to purchase their own bus tickets to meet family in cities across the US, many have nowhere to stay before the buses leave, and most are in need of rest, medical attention, and sustenance. Rodolfo Gonzalez/Austin American-Statesman/AP

US Border Patrol officer Ed Pyeatt consoles an unidentified illegal immigrant sitting in a cell at Chula Vista station, a border town to Mexico, in 1981. "With a government that doesn't care for them, indecent living conditions and poverty, you can't blame them." says Pyeatt. Lennox McLendon/AP

Joe Swanson and Dione Friends, both with the ACLU, hand out information to people who had crossed the Gateway International Bridge from Matamoros, Mexico, to Brownsville, Texas, in July 2014. Brad Doherty/The Brownsville Herald/AP

A group of illegal laborers from the northern Indiana and Illinois region walk to board a train in Chicago, Ill., to be deported to their native Mexico, in 1951. AP

US Border Patrol agent Manny Villalobos (c.) patrols with other agents along the international border between Mexico and the US near San Diego, in 2013. Mike Blake/Reuters

A border patrol boat secures the area as US Customs and Border Protection Commissioner Gil Kerlikowske (l.) talks about the dangers of crossing the US border during a news conference for a Danger Awareness Campaign at Anzalduas Park in Mission, Texas, in July 2014. Gabe Hernandez/The Monitor/AP

Undocumented students enrolled at UCLA attend a graduation ceremony for 'DREAMers,' or DREAM Act students, at a church near the campus in June 2012. Undocumented youths who came to the United States as children reacted with joy to an Obama administration rule change that could spare them deportation, although critics derided it as 'amnesty.' Jonathan Alcorn/Reuters

Resident Paul Hathaway shouts outside Murrieta Mesa High School in Murrieta, Calif., where city, county, and federal officials spoke about a plan to process immigrants detained in Texas at the Murrieta US Border Patrol facility, in July 2014. Terry Pierson/The Press-Enterprise/AP

Two young girls watch a World Cup soccer match on a television from their holding area where hundreds of mostly Central American immigrant children are being processed and held at the US Customs and Border Protection Nogales Placement Center in Nogales, Ariz.,in June 2014. Ross D. Franklin/AP

US Border Patrol agent Daniel Serrato drives along the border fence in Columbus, N.M in 2009. His office, in Deming New Mexico, is responsible for 47 miles of the border fence.is responsible for patrolling 47 miles of the border fence. Tony Avelar/Staff

Adriana Escandon (l.), a coordinator with the New Immigrant Community Empowerment (NICE), distributes worksite safety packs to day laborers in the New York borough of Queens, Dec. 2013,. NICE provides services for day laborers and the undocumented, including OSHA training, English language classes, and legal advice. Bebeto Matthews/AP

New Jersey Gov. Chris Christie sits with students during a gathering at Colin Powell Elementary School in heavily Hispanic Union City, N.J., after he ceremonially signed a bill that lowered tuition costs at public colleges for New Jersey students who lack lawful immigration status in Jan. 2014, . Mel Evans/AP

New citizens are naturalized during a US Citizenship and Immigration Services naturalization ceremony in Oakland, Calif., in Aug. 2013. A total of 1,225 new citizens representing 96 countries took the oath. Robert Galbraith/Reuters

US citizen Edgar Falcon hugs Maricruz Valtierra of Mexico at the US-Mexico border, where they were married in Aug. 2013, in El Paso, Texas. Like many other couples made up of a US citizen and a foreigner, Falcon and Valtierra, who has been declared inadmissible after an immigration law violation, hope immigration reform will help them live together in the US. Juan Carlos Llorca/AP

Artist Gretchen Baer paints on a fence marking the US border in Naco, Mexico, in April 2013. As the US pushes for tighter security along the Mexico border as part of an immigration overhaul, residents on either side of the fence are taking the unusual step of working to strengthen neighborly ties. Tim Gaynor/Reuters

Minuteman Project border volunteer and daylight crew supervisor Ed Whitbred from Maryland, looks over the US/Mexico border from the back of his truck along Border Road, near Naco, Ariz., in 2005. John Miller/AP

Illegal Mexican migrants start boarding a Boeing 757 at the Tucson International airport for their free flight to Mexico in Tucson, Ariz. in 2004. This was the first interior repatriation flight to Mexico, paid for by the United States government. John Miller/AP

Day laborers – illegal immigrants who could be eligible for amnesty under discussion in Congress – gather at the Home Depot in Santa Ana, Calif., to wait for job offers in construction and yardwork. in 2013. The men come every day and sometimes wait all day without getting hired. Melanie Stetson Freeman / Staff

Maria Cobarrubias, an immigration lawyer in Santa Ana, Calif, is one of seven siblings born in the United States to illegal immigrants who were legalized in the 1986 amnesty. Typical of families affected by amnesty, the children were upwardly mobile – six of the seven have college degrees. Melanie Stetson Freeman / Staff

Arizona Gov. Jan Brewer leaves a news conference responding to the US Supreme Court decision at the Arizona Capitol in Phoenix, in 2012. The Supreme Court struck down key provisions of Arizona’s tough law on immigration but said a much-debated portion on checking the status of suspected illegal immigrants could go forward. Ross D. Franklin/AP

Illegal immigrants prepare to enter a bus after being processed at Tucson Sector US Border Patrol Headquarters in Tucson, Ariz., Aug. 2012. A major US effort to discourage repeated attempts by immigrants to enter the country illegally by flying and busing them into Mexico hundreds of miles away from where they were caught has been sharply scaled back after producing relatively modest gains. Ross D. Franklin/AP

Andy Hernandez, carrying a Mexican flag, and Allison Culver, carrying an American flag, argue over SB1070, an Arizona anti-illegal immigration measure, outside the State Capitol Building in Phoenix in June 2012. Patrick Breen/Arizona Republic/AP

A man receives a haircut at Casa del Migrante in Reynosa, Mexico, in April 2013. Casa del Migrante provides housing, food, clothing, and medical care to people planning to cross the border, and to those who have been deported from the US. Eric Thayer/Reuters

US Border agents sail down the Rio Grande using an airboat near Del Rio, Texas, in 2001. The Del Rio Sector airboat program in the first for the US Border Patrol and covers about 205 miles of U.S.-Mexico border.Eric Gay/AP

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On the same day the Arizona immigration law had its day in court – the US Supreme Court – the state's residents held rallies both for and against it. For critics, the issue is racial profiling. For the high court, it's federal vs. state authority.

ByLourdes Medrano, CorrespondentApril 26, 2012

Matt York/AP

Arizonans marched and protested Wednesday, some in support of their state's tough immigration law and others against it, even as news reports emerged about how the law had fared during its test at the US Supreme Court, 2,300 miles away.